Using Management Tools

ASP.NET 2.0 includes a full range of management tools that you can use to
configure your web application:

An ASP.NET Microsoft Management Console Snapin that integrates with the Internet Information Services (IIS)
MMC administration tool, allowing you to change the ASP.NET version of any
IIS application, and inspect and change many common settings.

A Web Site Administration Tool integrated with all versions of Visual Studio,
allowing you to configure application configuration such as authentication and
authorization settings.

Command line tools such as aspnet_regsql, which allows you to configure
your SQL database for use with ASP.NET, and aspnet_regiis, which allows you to
configure common ASP.NET settings from the command line,

ASP.NET MMC Snapin

The ASP.NET MMC Snapin is integrated into the IIS MMC administration tool. To use the snapin,
use the following steps:

Open the IIS MMC console, by using Administrative Tools/Internet Information Services.

Select the application or directory you want to debug, and select Properties from the Action menu.

From the property sheet, click on the ASP.NET tab.

On this tab, you can review or change the ASP.NET version used for the current application.
Any change you make to this setting applies to all child applications.

To make changes to configuration settings at this level, click on Edit configuration.
A separate window will open, allowing you to inspect or change settings. Click OK to apply settings and close
the window.

Web Site Administration Tool

One of the new features for web developers in Visual Studio 2005 is a graphical administration
tool for configuring common application and security settings for your web sites.
The Web site Administration tool allows you to perform the following configuration tasks:

Take an application temporarily offline, to allow reliable updates of content and data

Adjust debugging and tracing settings

Define a default custom error page

Select providers for use with site features such as membership

The Web Application Administration tool is available with all versions of Visual
Studio 2005, and from Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition.
To open the administration tool from a web site project, select ASP.NET Configuration
from the Website menu.

The ASPNET_REGSQL Tool

ASP.NET 2.0 has a number of application services that can be configured to use
a SQL Server database, including session state, membership, roles, user profiles,
personalization, and SQL cache invalidation.

Each of these features require that ASP.NET and the database be configured to set up
permissions, and create and prepopulate databases as needed. To configure ASP.NET
and SQL to use these services, you can use the aspnet_regsql tool. This tool
can be found in the version-specific framework directory, under the Microsoft.NET\Framework
subdirectory of your Windows system folder.

The aspnet_regsql tool can be used either as a command line tool or a wizard. To run
the tool as a wizard, you can run it without any command line arguments. To see a list
of available options, run aspnet_regsql -?.

The ASPNET_REGIIS Tool

The .NET Framework redistributable includes a command line tool, called aspnet_regiis,
for installing and uninstalling ASP.NET and features on sites.
You can also used this tool to manage configuration encryption features.

Each version of the .NET Framework includes an ASPNET_REGIIS tool. To configure a
particular version of ASP.NET, you need to locate and use the corresponding
version of ASPNET_REGIIS. The tool can be found in the version-specific framework directory,
under the Microsoft.NET\Framework subdirectory of your Windows system folder.

The following are some examples of ASPNET_REGIIS command line syntax. For a list of all
options, enter aspnet_regiis -?.

Install ASP.NET

To install a version ASP.NET on a machine, and map all applications to use it,
use aspnet_regiis -i.

To install without updating scriptmaps, use aspnet_regiis -ir.

Enable ASP.NET in the IIS 6.0 Security Console

To enable ASP.NET as a valid extension for IIS 6.0, use aspnet_regiis -enable.

To disable it, use aspnet_regiis -disable.

Uninstall ASP.NET

To uninstall a version of ASP.NET, run aspnet_regiis -u. All existing
applications using this version will be remapped to the highest remaining version
of ASP.NET.

To uninstall all versions, use aspnet_regiis -ua.

Map an IIS application to an ASP.NET version

To configure an IIS application to run a specific version of ASP.NET,
call aspnet_regiis -spath or aspnet_regiis -snpath, where
path is the IIS metabase path of the application. -s will recursively
map all child applications to the same version.

List versions of ASP.NET

To list all installed versions of ASP.NET on a computer, use aspnet_regiis -lv.

To install specific mappings for individual directories, use aspnet_regiis -lk.

Give a user permissions to access ASP.NET resources

To give a specific Windows user account permissions to the IIS metabase, and to
special directories used by ASP.NET, use aspnet_regiis -gauser, where
user the user name. This option is helpful when configuring ASP.NET to run
under a different user identity.